Anon Vitn 19VII
Kari Ellen Gade (ed.) 2007, ‘Anonymous Poems, Vitnisvísur af Máríu 19’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry on Christian Subjects. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 7. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 752-3.
‘Láttu, líknarmey dróttins,
leiðaz próf, þar er beiðig
þig, að eg þörfnumz eigi,
þín, riettinda minna.
Sýndu með sætleiks anda
sveit, er alt gott veitir,
hvárt, in hæsta birti,
hefir sannara við annað.’
‘{Líknarmey dróttins}, láttu leiðaz próf þín, þar er beiðig þig, að eg þörfnumz eigi riettinda minna. Sýndu, in hæsta birti, er veitir alt gott, sveit með anda sætleiks, hvárt hefir sannara við annað.’
‘{Merciful Virgin of the Lord} [= Mary], let your testimonies be brought forward because I beg you, so that I shall not be without my justice. You, the highest brightness, who offers everything good, show to the crowd with a spirit of sweetness which one has the law on their side against the other.’
Mss: 713(84-5), 721(12r)
Readings: [2] þar: það 713, 721; er: so 721, ‘ec’ 713; beiðig: so 721, beiði 713 [7] hvárt: hvárt er 721
Editions: Skj AII, 486, Skj BII, 524, Skald II, 287, NN §2668; Kahle 1898, 53-4, 103, Sperber 1911, 27, 72, Wrightson 2001, 36.
Notes: [2] þar er beiðig ‘because I beg’: The ms. variants það er beiðig (so 721) and það eg beiði (so 713) are ungrammatical: the verb beiða ‘beg, ask, implore’ takes gen. of the thing, and það ‘that’ is n. acc. sg. Earlier eds accordingly emend það (n. acc. sg.) ‘that’ to þess (n. gen. sg.) ‘that’ (‘I ask that’). Clearly, the error must have originated in the misinterpretation of an abbreviation in the earlier ms. transmission. It is easy to see how the abbreviation for þar can be confused with the abbreviation for það, and also how er (so 721) can be confused with ‘ec’ (so 713). Beiðig ‘I ask’ (lit. ‘ask-I’; so 721) with the cliticised pron. is also more archaic than eg beiði (so 713). — [4] þín ... minna: Note the imperfect rhyme -ín : -inn-. — [7, 8] hvárt hefir sannara við annað ‘which one has the law on their side against the other’: For the legal expression hafa sannara ‘to be in the right, to have the law on one’s side’, see Fritzner: sannr 1. The n. forms hvárt ‘which one’ and annað ‘the other’ are used because of ‘mixed company’ (the woman and the man).
References
- Bibliography
- Skald = Kock, Ernst Albin, ed. 1946-50. Den norsk-isländska skaldediktningen. 2 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- NN = Kock, Ernst Albin. 1923-44. Notationes Norrœnæ: Anteckningar till Edda och skaldediktning. Lunds Universitets årsskrift new ser. 1. 28 vols. Lund: Gleerup.
- Sperber, Hans, ed. 1911. Sechs isländische Gedichte legendarischen Inhalts. Uppsala Universitets årsskrift, filosofi, språkvetenskap och historiska vetenskaper 2. Uppsala: Akademische Buchdruckerei Edv. Berling.
- Wrightson, Kellinde, ed. 2001. Fourteenth-Century Icelandic Verse on the Virgin Mary: Drápa af Maríugrát, Vitnisvísur af Maríu, Maríuvísur I-III. Viking Society for Northern Research Text Series 14. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
- Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
- Kahle, Bernhard, ed. 1898. Isländische geistliche Dichtungen des ausgehenden Mittelalters. Heidelberg: Winter.
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